The Core
Why We Are Here => Web Development => Topic started by: grnidone on January 29, 2011, 04:38:08 PM
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Hi, I just got this email this morning...
Dear Client,
As you may know, in early 2010, Textbroker increased its prices for 2-, 3-, and 4-star articles for new client accounts. However we grandfathered your account so that you continued to pay the original prices from our launch in the middle of 2008. You can see our current rate card at: http://www.textbroker.com/us/client-prices.php. In summary, the current price of 2-, 3-, and 4-star articles for new accounts are all 0.2 cents per word ($0.002 per word) higher than what you pay. 5-star articles continue to be priced at our original rate. While 0.2 cents per word is not a big amount, we left your prices at our original rates for more than a year to thank you for being one of the founding clients of Textbroker.com. We also left your per-order fee at $0.15 per article (new clients pay $0.30 per article) and our commission on DirectOrders at 25% of the author’s set price, whereas new clients pay a 30% commission.
Since our launch in 2008, we have expanded our presence in the United States dramatically. We opened an office in Las Vegas, NV in 2009, and we will launch an office in New York City soon. We continue to hire new editors, new customer service personnel, and new engineers. We have improved our client account interface with new functionality based on your feedback, including automatic export to WordPress/Joomla/Drupal, an API, and keyword density requirements. We have a long list of additional features that we will be adding in the months to come, and we will be introducing some brand new, complementary services in 2011 from within your client account interface, in addition to our recent launch of Proofreading.
As a result, on February 15, 2011 we need to move all clients, including you, to our current rates for new accounts. For example, a 400-word DirectOrder at 2.5 cents per word and a $0.15 processing fee will go to 2.6 cents per word with a $0.30 processing fee. That’s an overall increase from $10.15 to $10.70. As another example, a 350-word, 3-star OpenOrder will increase from $5.05 to $5.90.
Thanks again for using Textbroker. While your prices will increase slightly on February 15, 2011 to what all of our 2010-2011 clients are currently paying, we want to repeat that we truly appreciate your confidence in us from our earliest days in the U.S. – and while we can’t continue to offer you our original pricing, we are working on a few other ways to show our appreciation for you and our other founding clients.
Best regards,
Christina Zila
Textbroker International LLC
5940 S. Rainbow Boulevard
Las Vegas, Nevada 89118
e-mail: mail@textbroker.com
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Interesting, still way cheaper than we pay here.
So the question is:
- how the quality?
- how fast do they deliver?
Are their stuff feasible for spinning and submitting to articles sites?
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I use them a lot. The quality is OK, but that depends on what you are using it for. I tend to go for the 4* rate, ie the best of the cheap options. My experience is that 2* level is pretty crap whilst the 5* level can be a bit pricey if you want a few articles that are around the 1,000 word mark. So you basically get what you pay for.
I have used the 5* option for important stuff and have always had a good experience. But I've had a few howlers in the cheaper options, but mostly, say 85% of the time, they have been great. You get the option of a rewrite if its rubbish and I've only ever had to do a total reject on a couple of pieces.
I tend to have between two and ten articles at a time and they are usually completed in two days.
Worth making a note of any really good authors and going direct when suitable.
HTH :)
BTW - what do you mean by spinning? ???
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Thanks Peter!
>spinning
Using the same articles for mass producing a lot of different/spun versions:
http://th3core.com/talk/web-development/how-i-find-good-content-writers/
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> spinning
Just kiddin' ;D
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Hehehe, I was surprised that you asked. I must be slow today ;)
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spinning:
http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=spinning&hl=en&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbs=isch:1&ei=ysFGTculGsWq4Aaen508&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CCkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1545&bih=804
I got that Heather, I guess it was bound to happen. It has been the rate for new users for a while I think.
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>still way cheaper than we pay here.
Rumbas, we also lack good sites to buy content in our local language.
We did an experiment the other day with some Google ads to get local language content writers, offering 7 euro per 400 words article in the ad. The landing page explains some research may be required before writing and we are entitled to ask for a revision once. We also mention we are specifically looking for people who will write for us on a regular basis under these conditions.
We got dozens of writer applications the first day. One very angry email from a freelance writer saying we were a menace to the freelance writing society ;)
I'm sure we could have offered less if text quality was less of an issue.
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Interesting to read other's opinion of text broker. It goes by the name "text borker" here now which gives some idea of the success we have with it.
It's ok for spinnable dross, but I've yet to get anything readable at the 4* level. I find that the time needed to spec, post, wait, review, request revisions, bang head on wall at revised version and then ultimately re-write takes longer than actually writing it. Not a time-save for me yet.
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Sorry to hear you have a bad experience with Textbroker - my experience with 4* and 5* had never been bad. Maybe you should try the 5* service.
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"One very angry email from a freelance writer saying we were a menace to the freelance writing society"
heheheh, I know when people start calling me a menace I'm doing something right.
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Lining up some ideas for the 5* service and for truecontent as well at the moment. I could do with outsourcing the outsource management next!
I should point out that I've paid for the articles every time on textborker. Even when it reads worse than spun content I just can't bring myself not to pay those prices.
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Oh - and turn off the "do you want it optimised?" button :D
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Does anyone have a sample 5* article you would be willing to share?
I'm kind of amazed that they don't have any samples on their site.
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I just ordered four 1star articles - I was going to spin them and use them for article submissions anyway, so low-ish quality and a bit of correction was not really a problem
I have 3 back so far - from 2 different writers - all of which are actually pretty good.
I would have no hesitation submitting them 'as is' for article submissions - not perhaps good enough to qualify as 'expert opinion' or great for conversions, but no grammar or spelling issues, and they are as good as many people's real site content.
Guess I got lucky - most of the 1star stuff I had a while ago was complete pants.
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Hi Guys, Being in the content game it is easy to see why they have crept their prices up. Freelancers are starting to push their pricing up even in the emerging economies where a lot of their writers come from. I am not one to normally stick up for the competition but they have had pricing artificially low for a couple of years now. But its horses for courses when 1 star rating is legiblethey do really lay out what you can expect from that sort of price point. We too had a small price rise in January which I really didn't want to do but the current market is forcing peoples hands.
One question I would rise from the guys talking about spinning, does anyone agree with me that this latest algo is aimed at spunn content as I cant see how they an ignore that but target guys like Demand Media? Your opinions gratefully received.
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does anyone agree with me that this latest algo is aimed at spunn content
Almost everything I do involves spun content and I have seen no impact at all - in fact everything is going in the right direction still.
I pride myself on doing 'better than normal' spun content, so it always possible I am still above the detection threshold though.
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4eyes. Good test thx. I had not tried 1 star since the start. Worth trying again. I guess people start at 1 star?